An open letter to all and any who will take time to listen and understand, not just listen to ask questions or make judgments.

The end of the year brings people, including myself, into a time of reflection and realization. Some are proud of their year's work and look back with admiration. Most, like myself, look back and wonder where it went wrong or where they may have missed it.

The year of 2016 was a year where I discovered a lot of things about myself. Certain situations caused me to know how far I can be pushed til my breaking point. Other times I was the one pushing someone over the edge. I put myself in situations that caused me to become a person that I never thought I would be. I became someone I didn't like. I looked myself in the mirror and couldn't recognize myself. Where I used to look at the crowds around me and feel compassion, now I felt like they were judging me so I would judge back, when in reality I wasn't even in the back of their mind, not talking about the forefront of it! I started to do things more to impress which caused me to do things I wouldn't have otherwise. I put the guard on my heart down and let people in who should have never been there. I crossed lines, broke self-made "rules," and ignored boundaries.

I looked at myself in pure and utter disappointment. It's said that we are our own worst critic...If I don't judge myself to better standards, I will never become the best me I was created to be.

I, we, all of us, were created to embody Him. The One who is the shoreless ocean. The One whose very breath passes through our lungs and gives us life. The One who hid himself in the naked branches of the winter trees. The One who yearns to be found by us. The One who chooses us over and over even when we don't choose Him.

The year of 2017 holds a lot of promises, a lot of mysteries, that only I can choose to unravel. The "me" that I don't like, I am leaving in 2016. And the "me" of 2017, I am ready to let the creator of all beauty start to rebuild, restitch, and re-mesh.